


Twenty Bucks and a Switchblade Knife

by QueenOfTheQuill



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Comfort, Darcy is more poetic than you think, F/M, General Shenanigans, Road Trip, Stars, Steve's motorcycle, feelsy talks, spontanaeity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-25
Updated: 2014-07-01
Packaged: 2018-01-26 12:35:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1688558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfTheQuill/pseuds/QueenOfTheQuill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her eyes lit up in the way that let everyone know that she was planning something and Steve glanced at her warily.</p><p>“Darcy,” he said cautiously. “What are you planning?”</p><p>She merely grinned. “Just grab a quick shower and meet me in the garage in ten. I’ve got an idea.”</p><p>“Is it going to hurt?”</p><p>Darcy merely laughed and stood up. “Ye of little faith! See you in a few.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Freedom Ride

**Author's Note:**

> So... this happened. I really wanted Darcy to just take Steve away from all of the hustle and bustle and pressure and just GO. Then my muse took off. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> Work and chapter titles from 'Gold Trans Am' by Ke$ha.

Darcy Lewis didn’t know exactly how she came to be head superhero wrangler. Well, maybe she did, if she thought about it hard enough. She moved to Avengers Tower with Jane when Tony Stark offered her the money, workspace, and closer proximity to her “personal, blonde Tilt-A-Whirl.” This last was said with a very saucy eyebrow wiggle and a knowing smirk. She was really just being considerate when she brought Bruce and Tony lunch as well as Jane. After all, Darcy knew that they got as little sleep as the Boss Lady. Then, somehow, Fury had caught wind of her mystical ability to say “sit down and shut up” to Tony Stark and actually be listened to about 60% of the time and told her that he’d put her on SHIELD’s payroll to keep the rest of them off his ass. And who was she to turn down another paycheck for stuff she was already doing, especially if it was coming from the jackbooted thugs who still had her iPod, thank you very much. It didn’t matter that Tony had given her a new one, Stark tech, with like $300 worth of songs she liked, it was the principal of the thing, dammit. They still totally owed her.

Ok, so upon further review, it was pretty clear how she’d been given care of possibly the most fucked up bunch of people ever in charge of saving the world. She wrangled and cajoled and soothed and joked and was good at it. She could get Jane to eat and Bruce to calm down and Tony to sleep and Nat and Clint to stop hiding and talk about their feelings and Thor not to attack the appliances when he was frustrated.

One thing she hadn’t dealt with yet, however, was Captain America having a minor panic attack, trying to reconcile past and present in his head.

She hadn’t meant to find him, really. She just couldn’t sleep anymore and when she glanced at the clock and saw that it was 6AM, she figured she might as well get up. Feeling her usual level of non-motivation, she simply pulled on an oversized sweater over her pajamas before stumbling into the common area of the tower.

Once she was on her second mug of coffee from the communal kitchen, Darcy found that she couldn’t sit still. Taking her mug of coffee with her, she started wandering, past the empty library, movie room, common living room, and up a flight of stairs towards the gym, the favorite haunt of most of Earth’s mightiest heroes. Maybe she could talk to Nat while the redhead ran, or get Clint to teach her how to shoot an exploding arrow, even though he claimed she wasn’t allowed to touch his bow. She totally was; he just didn’t know it yet.

What she hadn’t expected was to find Steve Rogers, back to her, absolutely whaling away at a punching bag. The grunts he made didn’t sound like they were only from exertion; they were almost pained.

She leaned in the doorway, watching his punches become increasingly fast and frantic, knowing from experience with Nat that interrupting an Avenger in battle mode, even a workout, was a bad idea. The soft leather of the bag sent echoing thuds around the room as it was hit repeatedly, finally flying off the attached chain to smack into the cement wall, 20 feet away, and split open, trickling sand sadly onto the floor. Turning to grab a new bag, Steve finally caught sight of her and stopped short, looking sheepish.

“Howdy, soldier,” Darcy said, pushing off the doorway to walk into the room. “Hell of a way to start off the day.” She gestured to the defeated bag with her mug. “What heinous crime did the bag commit, to be dealt the heavy hand of American justice?”

Steve ran a hand through sweaty blonde hair, glancing away. “Nothing, I suppose,” he confessed. “I just… needed something to take my mind off it, ya know?”

Perching on an exercise ball that Jane had left out the last time Darcy had managed to get her in here, the brunette shook her head. “No, I don’t know. Wanna tell me?”

Sighing, Steve sat on the pile of unused punching bags. “It’s just… everything is so different. Not just the physical city; that I could deal with. But the culture, the pace of life, the social order, hell, even the slang has changed since I… fell asleep.” Darcy knew he wasn’t talking about the last nap he’d taken. “I can’t keep up sometimes,” he admitted. “The two worlds I know are incompatible in my head. One that I lived in for twenty odd years is gone forever and one that I’ve only been in for a few years rushes on without me.” His voice took on a slightly panicked edge at the end.

Darcy nodded. “I can get that, on a much smaller scale. I was a small town girl. I grew up in the quintessential midwestern corn-row town, grandfathered into Culver. Took a full ride scholarship on test scores and alumni membership, but it wasn’t much different from where I’d left. And Thor knows that Puente Antiguo wasn’t exactly the modern cultural hub of the Southwest. Drop a backwater chick like me in the bright lights and fast cars of New York City and sometimes I want to put my head between my knees and take deep breaths. But I guess I just make a joke and move on and visit home every once in a while if I need a break. You can’t do that, but you can take a vacay anyway.” Her eyes lit up in the way that let everyone know that she was planning something and Steve glanced at her warily.

“Darcy,” he said cautiously. “What are you planning?”

She merely grinned. “Just grab a quick shower and meet me in the garage in ten. I’ve got an idea.”

“Is it going to hurt?”

Darcy merely laughed and stood up. “Ye of little faith! See you in a few.” She sauntered out of the room.

A quick change of clothes and a note letting everyone know that they weren’t kidnapped later, she found Steve standing in the doorway of the garage, gazing with trepidation at all of Tony’s fancy cars.

“You know I can’t really get the hang of something that fancy, right Darce?” he asked, jerking a thumb at the nearest Audi.

“Actually,” she said, swinging a brown leather jacket over her shoulders, “If you don’t mind, I thought we’d take your ride. Look, I came prepared and everything,” she said brightly, holding up a pair of shiny new helmets. One of them had the Captain America shield painted on the side and she grinned cheekily as she settled that one on her head, tossing him the other, plain black.

“That’s fine with me, but I already have a helmet,” Steve said in confusion.

“Tony outfitted these with radios, so the people wearing them can talk to each other on the road.”

He looked surprised. “Why did he do that?”

“Because I asked him to,” she said simply. “I was hoping to get you to take me out on your bike sometime anyway, so this is really just me granting my own wish.” She grinned up at him. “Lucky me. Come on, Super Soldier. We’re going on a roadtrip.”

“Where?” Steve asked sensibly as he followed her towards the end of the garage, where his bike was parked.

“Wherever the hell we want.”

~*~

It was pleasant, Darcy thought, to be cruising down the highway in summer with her arms wrapped around Captain America. Even better to have her arms wrapped around Steve Rogers, though, because Captain America was stern and battle ready while Steve Rogers made interesting observations about the Atlantic coast beside them and stuttered nervously when she made a dirty joke.

They pulled into a rest stop outside Virginia Beach for lunch and Darcy laughed when someone recognized Steve and he blushed when he was asked for a picture, giving his best ‘aw, shucks’ grin for the camera phone she pointed at him and a beaming six year old in an Avengers t-shirt. They managed to escape before a queue formed for autographs and pictures, ducking out a side door with grins.

“Let’s make our getaway while we still can,” said Darcy, cramming her helmet onto her head and swinging a leg over the bike to nestle up behind Steve. She gave a cheeky wave to their fellow road tripees, crowding out the doors of the rest stop with phones out, undoubtedly taking pictures and videos of Captain America’s mystery girl. “That’s going to be all over the press tomorrow,” she announced cheerfully as they got up to speed on the highway.

“Darcy-” Steve began.

“Oh no. I can hear the ‘I’m sorry for the hardships my very presence evokes on you’ voice and you’re not allowed, bucko. This trip was my idea and I claim full responsibility for it until something goes wrong, at which point, I blame you for everything. This does not count as going wrong. This is an adventure.”

She heard him laugh. “I can just imagine the look on your face as you were saying that,” he told her with a grin evident in his voice.

“And I’m sure it was utterly terrifying,” she replied, pulling herself closer to him. “Now let’s see what this puppy can do.”

The next time they stopped was in Savannah, Georgia, where they found a cheap, but clean motel, which Darcy paid for by gleefully whipping out her company card.

“What?” she asked innocently, when Steve gave her a Captain America Disapproves look. “I consider this a work mandated therapy roadtrip to better the psychological health of one of the team members. Plus, Fury totally owes you for that thing with Dr. Doom last week. He sent you in practically blind. I feel no guilt.”

Steve rolled his eyes at her, but allowed her to use SHIELD’s money without further protest. “I’ll switch off and use Tony’s next time,” she told him. “He has more bank than he knows what to do with, anyway. Have you seen the things he gets Pepper for Christmas?”

Out of respect for Steve’s 1940’s morals, Darcy had booked a room with two queens, even though she wouldn’t have minded sharing a bed. She unlocked the door and immediately flopped on both beds, unashamedly claiming the one with the slightly softer mattress.

They ate dinner in a small diner, Steve hiding under a baseball cap that he’d produced from somewhere on his motorcycle. “In case of helmet hair,” he said sheepishly. Darcy laughed at him and told him he was adorable.

“So,” said Steve, once they were settled in a booth and their orders had been taken. “Why a roadtrip?”

Darcy shrugged, leaning towards him across the table and propping her neck on her hand. “It’s kind of the ultimate expression of freedom. And time doesn’t really apply on the road, have you ever noticed that? The only things that matter are to stop and eat when you’re hungry, sleep when you’re tired, and get off to explore every once in a while. I figured that was what you needed. A break from the rushing pressure, a place where everything is timeless.” She smiled at him softly. “How’d I do on my psych eval?”

Steve looked astonished, then grateful. He smiled at her. “Perfect. Absolutely perfect.”

The waitress kind of ruined their moment by bringing their food, but it was ok. Darcy figured that Steve wasn’t ready for super deep heart-to-hearts with her yet. They ate slowly and talked innocently. Darcy discovered that Steve was a checkers champ in his youth, that he’d grown up mostly with his mother before being put into an orphanage when he was 14, that they shared some Irish roots, and that he’d once taken an art class where they’d drawn women nude. This last admission was made with his face flaming from his neck to the roots of his hair. Steve learned that Darcy had played soccer from a young age until college, that her favorite band was the Arctic Monkeys, that she had four older brothers, Kevin, Matt, Neil, and Chris, who protected her fiercely, and that she could tie cherry stems with her tongue. Darcy even resisted making a dirty joke about it, a fact of which she was very proud.

It was nearly 9:30 when they returned to the motel, where Darcy promptly stripped into her underwear and a camisole. Steve averted his eyes hurriedly, causing Darcy to huff and cross her arms. “You’re going to have to get over it, Steve, I didn’t exactly pack any pajamas.” She gestured to the suitcase-less room.

Frowning, Steve turned back to her, looking very carefully at her face and nowhere else. “It just doesn’t feel right… Speaking of packing, why _didn’t_ you bring anything with you?”

“Didn’t need to. This is a back-to-the-basics, find yourself, one with the universe type roadtrip. I’ve got only what’s in my pockets which, in addition to the company cards and my phone, is nothing but twenty bucks and a switchblade knife.”

Steve raised an eyebrow. “Why do you have a knife?”

“Older brothers. They made me carry something to defend myself with no matter where I went. Unfortunately, tasers are illegal in New York, so I have to pretend I don’t have it anymore. I carry a knife instead. Kevin taught me how to use it.” She pulled out her switchblade, a simple black handle sheathing a well-kept steel blade. “See?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Tasers are illegal, so you carry a _knife_ instead?”

“Easier to hide,” she said with a grin. “But that’s beside the point. We came out here for you and I damn well intend to have a talk with you about some stuff.”

A look of foreboding crossed Steve’s face as he sat down on his bed, leaning against the side wall. “Why do I not like the sound of that?” he muttered as she sat crosslegged on hers, facing him. He rested his head against the drywall and gestured for her to begin.

“How hard is it? Really, Steve, not that crap you spew to the S.H.I.E.L.D. psychs so they’ll leave you alone. You missed 70 years of history and that jump couldn’t have been easy. Added to that, I bet you have some stuff from before that you never dealt with.”

“Darcy-”

She raised a hand to stop him. “Don’t start with that ‘I’m a manly man who can take care of myself and doesn’t need to talk about my feelings’ shit. I can hear it in your voice, that that’s where you’re going. And Steve?” She gave him a hard look. “Just don’t.”

Steve sighed heavily, looking away from Darcy, towards a blank wall. “It wasn’t easy, in the orphanage, after Ma died. I was always smaller and Bucky always had to look after me, but I couldn’t help getting into scraps…” And just like that, Captain America was spilling his life story to her in a cheap motel room on a roadtrip to Heimdall knows where. She listened attentively, nodding in all the right places, making sounds of encouragement when he trailed off. At one point, when he was talking about Bucky falling off the train, she even switched over to his bed, sitting next to him and resting her head on his shoulder. With her arm around his waist and his around her shoulders, the story didn’t seem quite as unbearable as it had moments before.

“I can’t even imagine,” Darcy whispered when he was done. They’d migrated through the hours and were laying next to each other, cuddling innocently on his bed. “Losing so much, but still fighting on.”

“It’s what I’ve always done,” Steve replied, gazing into the air beyond her as he rested his chin on her head. “I promised myself once that I’d never give up, not until I was gone or the enemy was. Just because my life got a little messed up doesn’t mean I’m breaking that promise.”

Pulling back so she could look in his eyes, Darcy smiled. “But hey, at least you’re not doing it alone, right? I’ll be here for you, and so will the rest of the team. Whenever you need to talk, you tell me, yeah? And I’ll be your personal guide to the 21st century, no judgement.” He merely raised an eyebrow and she laughed. “Very minor judgement and some teasing,” she amended.

He grinned. “That’s more like you. Now come on, it’s bedtime. We’ve got a long road ahead.” He nudged her shoulder, trying to get her to move to her own bed.

“Nuh-uh, Rogers, I’m not leaving. You’re warm and I’m comfortable and we’re not going to do anything, so I’m not moving.” She closed her eyes and snuggled deeper into his side to prove her point.

To her surprise, he settled down as well, instead of arguing with her about it. “Who am I to argue with a gorgeous dame? Just don’t steal all of the blankets.”

Already half asleep, Darcy smiled. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

~*~

When Steve woke up a few hours later, crying out and kicking, Darcy wasn’t really that surprised. She’d made him dredge up old, painful memories, and besides, he’d probably suffered from nightmares already.

“Steve! _Steve!_ Wake up Steve, it’s just a dream.”

He flew up into sitting position, forcing her to whip backwards or get clocked in the face, since she’d been leaning over him. He stared wildly around the room, panting, before he remembered where he was and slumped with a gasp. “Sorry,” he mumbled through his hands, which he had stuffed over his face.

“Don’t be. You’re allowed to be a human, Steve.” She tentatively placed a hand on his shoulder and he twitched, but didn’t shake it off. “Wanna talk about it?” He shook his head. “Wanna hit the road?”

“It’s the middle of the night.”

“So? I bet you don’t fall back asleep easily after those and there’s no punching bag for you to take your feelings out on. This is about you, not me, and right now, you need to be moving. Besides, I know how to function on little to no sleep. I was in college.” She grinned at him, then glanced at the clock, which read 3:46. “Bet you we can make Jacksonville by sunrise.”

They did, but only barely. They sat on a deserted beach to watch the sunrise and Darcy fell asleep with her head on Steve’s lap. She woke up a few hours later to the beginnings of a sunburn and half a dozen sketches of her and the beach and her on the beach. She berated Steve for not waking her up and he just smiled at her bashfully and told her she was “too pretty to wake up” which was almost flirting, coming from him. He bought her aloe lotion on the way out of town.

They spent half a day lounging around Panama Beach and ducking the paparazzi, competing with each other for the most ridiculous disguises they could buy from the beach side shops. They went a little ways outside the city for a motel for the night, sticking to the less-frequented-but-still-habitable type. They fell asleep almost immediately after dinner, since Darcy was still tired and Steve seemed obliged to go to sleep when she did, though they started in separate beds that night. When Steve got restless, tossing in his sleep and waking her, she climbed into his bed without hesitation, stroking his hair back from his forehead and singing lullabies until he quieted. She stayed awake in his bed, keeping vigil until he woke at dawn.

When they arrived in New Orleans, they found a full blown Big Easy funeral moving down to one of the Spanish moss draped graveyards.

“Oo, could you follow it please Steve? I’ve always wanted to see one of these in person.”

Darcy could hear the frown in his voice. “Isn’t that a bit disrespectful?”

She shook her head. “Funerals are different in N’awlans,” she replied, pulling her helmet off to hear the music of the band leading the procession better. “Just wait and see. Follow a little ways back.”

A respectful distance behind, they listened to the somber march of the drum and the trumpet as the procession entered the graveyard. Steve parked the bike and they both hopped off, joining a growing crowd of onlookers.

“Who is it?” Darcy asked quietly of a older black man near them.

“Name was Jazz Louie,” the man replied in a similar hushed tones as they watched the coffin being lowered into the ground and prayers being read. “He played on all the street corners, drew a crowd wherever he went. Been playing the streets since I was a kid and he’s been an old man just as long.” He gave her a soft grin. “He had a good life, right up to the end, and he lived it full out. Ain’t nothing he didn’t have a song for and there wasn’t a day in his life he wasn’t making music. Wasn’t no one he wouldn’t make it for neither. _Di moin qui vous laimein, ma di cous qui vous ye_. ‘Tell me whom you love, and I'll tell you who you are.’ If that’s true, Ole Louie was God,” the man laughed, “because there wasn’t a man or woman passed through New Orleans that he didn’t love.”

Darcy smiled at the long, rambling explanation. “He sounds wonderful. Wish we’d passed through in time to meet him.”

“Oh he’s still here,” the man said matter-of-factly. “Will be as long as there’s jazz in New Orleans and the sound of horns echoes down the streets. Oh, here we go. It’s starting.”

At that moment, it seemed that prayers were finished and the band struck up again, playing _When the Saints Go Marching In_ loudly and with the jazz/swing feel so common in New Orleans.

“What-” Steve started to ask, confused, as several people in the funeral procession opened brightly colored parasols and people streamed in from all corners of the street to join in the impromptu festival.

“The grieving’s over Steve. It’s time for the celebration!” Darcy yelled with a grin, over the music and the enthusiastic whoops. “A life was lost, it’s true, but you have to remember that it was lived too, and fully from the sound of it. Everyone’s welcome and there’s no way we’re sitting out.” Her eye gleamed as she grabbed his hand and pulled him into the fray.

He seemed stiff at first, unsure what to do with himself, but Darcy had joined a swing club at Culver one time when she was bored and then gotten hooked, so she took the lead and the grace Steve learned from fighting took over. He followed her lead and the example of everyone else and was soon swinging her around the street, laughing freely.

Later, they explored the Louisiana streets hand in hand and Darcy broke her twenty to distribute it to the musicians along the street corners. Steve apparently set a record in the small cafe they stopped in, where wide eyed patrons and workers alike watched him consume 142 beignets in a row. Darcy charged it to the Stark card, giggling as she hoped that Tony saw the statement and wondered why the hell she had ordered 12 dozen of New Orleans’ most famous pastry.

Darcy, who couldn’t resist staying in the French Quarter, checked them into a quaint little B&B deal that miraculously had a room left for them to stay in. She used the SHIELD card, and while she couldn’t wait for the paperwork when they reentered the real world, she decided that it was totally worth it. She gleefully tested the four semesters of high school French she’d taken on the motherly looking landlady, who laughed and told her to stick with English. She elbowed Steve in the ribs when he snorted, but grinned nevertheless.

For the first time of the week, they didn’t even pretend with the separate beds and just got a king sized to share. Of course, it was the only room left on pretty much the whole street, but still, neither of them protested.

They bummed around the hotel room for a while and took showers. Darcy ran out and bought each of them another set of clothes, grinning cheekily at Steve as she handed him an Iron Man tshirt. He just rolled his eyes and pulled it on. She pulled on her Captain America tshirt with the shit-eating grin still plastered on her face and took a selfie of them for posterity. And to send to Jane.

The nightlife was what Darcy had really been waiting for, so after dinner, she dragged Steve out to Bourbon Street. They strolled along, listening to the bands, soft jazz competing with something closer to swing. She pulled him into a bar, claiming that she wanted to get “good and drunk,” which she did. After all, who goes to a city with open container laws and doesn’t drink? She ordered a hurricane, because it was the first thing she saw, and she liked the cheekiness of naming a drink after something that had destroyed the city. She brought Steve up to date on that depressing piece of modern history.

Steve watched her stoically as she plowed her way through the menu, trying most of the things she hadn’t had before. He started out seriously enough, but once she started getting drunk, Darcy got a little bit ridiculous and his lips would twitch, then he was smiling, and finally, she got him laughing,

“Steve. SteveSteveSteveSteveSteve,” she said after what was approximately her eleventy-seventh drink. “Hey Steeeeeeeve.”

“Yes Darcy?” he said with possibly the most patient expression she’d ever seen on a human being. It was patienter than a guy in a doctor’s office. She giggled for a few seconds at her own inner genius before remembering that she had a question.

“Riiiight, question. Hey Steve, are you a virgin?”

Steve choked on the sip of beer he was taking, coughing and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Where did that come from?” he asked hoarsely.

“I’m cuuuuuuriouuuuus. Does that mean you are then?”

“I couldn’t really talk to dames - women - before or after the serum.” The tips of his ears were turning a really interesting shade of red.

“You talk to me,” Darcy pointed out. “I’m a girl.” She accentuated her statement by glancing down at her boobs.

“Yes, I noticed,” Steve said dryly.

Her eyes widened, then narrowed as she grinned wickedly. “Steven Rogers, did you just admit to having checked out my breasts?”

“N-no.” Apparently, Steve had found something really interesting to stare at on the ceiling. She checked, but there was nothing there.

“Oh my Thor, you have! Captain America totally checked out my boobs! I don’t blame you bro, they’re pretty amazing boobs.” Steve only blushed and muttered something unintelligible. “If it makes you feel any better, you have a spectacular ass,” she told him, beaming.

“Aaaaaand I think it’s time to go back to the room,” he said, prying the drink out of her hands and setting it on the counter. She pouted, but fumbled in her pocket until she found the cards, checking three times to make sure she handed over her Stark card. No way was she explaining a drinking spree to SHIELD. Tony would probably just give her a high five. In fact, when they got back to Stark Tower, she was _making_ him give her a high five.

“Stark owes me a high five,” she mumbled as Steve led her down the street.

“I’m sure he does, doll,” he told her as they made their way back to the hotel.

“We should do this again sometime. It was fun. You gotta pinkie promise that we’ll do it again. Pinkie _pinkie_ promise,” she told him seriously, looking at him with wide eyes and holding out her pinkie.

Steve chuckled, then rearranged his hold on her to link their little fingers together. “Pinkie, pinkie promise,” he told her.

She beamed.


	2. Burning Rubber on the Southern Highway

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: accidental death and resulting almost-suicide. The beginning and ending of the most detailed part are marked with ***, though I did leave some of the feelsy talk outside the asterisks.
> 
> A disclaimer I forgot to add last chapter: I have never been to any of these places. I don’t know if I’m decribing them right or doing them justice, but I’m trying my best with the internet resurces I have available. Feel free to correct me!
> 
> Note about timelines: this takes place before the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, since that’s another thing I forgot to say.
> 
> Also, I’ve started a Polyvore with some of Steve and Darcy’s outfits, so feel free to check those out here: http://celticandcountrylover.polyvore.com
> 
> Chapter title from Gold Trans Am by Ke$ha.

The next morning, Darcy complained about her hangover until well past Baton Rouge, despite the fact that she’d taken aspirin before they left the B&B. Steve took it with a smile, since he could tell that she was just doing it because she felt like it, not because she was in actual pain. By the time they’d reached Lafayette, 2 hours after leaving New Orleans, she had moved on to a game of Questions.

 

“Favorite color?”

 

“Dark green.”

 

“Really? Neither red, white, nor blue?”

 

Steve rolled his eyes. “Unfortunately for the PR people, no. You?”

 

“Red, definitely red. Eye popping, fire engine, arrest-me red.”

 

He laughed. “Why do none of those adjectives surprise me?”

 

He felt her shake as she laughed. “Because you know me too well?” she asked, voice coy.

 

“Maybe I don’t. Isn’t that the point of this game?”

 

“Maybe. Maybe I just want to get you to reveal state secrets. Like where they keep the controls for the secret implants in everyone’s brains?”

 

“I’m sorry ma’am, but that’s classified.”

 

“You’re an ass.”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

He could _hear_ her grin. “No you’re not.”

 

“Not really, but it was polite to say it.”

 

They stopped a few miles across the Texan border for lunch, then continued on to San Antonio, arriving just in time for dinner. Darcy dragged Steve to a restaurant with ‘real Mexican food, not that New York imitation crap,’ which he thoroughly enjoyed. He chuckled when she stared, wide-eyed at the vast spread of plates before him.

 

“That many tamales can _not_ be good for a person,” she said in an admiring tone.

 

Steve made sure to chew and swallow before answering with, “I have a fast metabolism, the restaurant has good food, and we’ve been on the road all day. What more is there to know?”

 

Shaking her head, Darcy bit into a taco. “What more indeed?”

 

The tours of the Alamo were closed for the day, but they could still see the building from a distance.

 

“It’s amazing,” Darcy said softly as they leaned on a fence to gaze at the weathered stone.

 

“What is?”

 

“The courage it would take to stay, knowing that you weren’t going to leave. Knowing that within hours, or days if you were lucky, there was a very very high chance that you would be dead.”

 

Steve let out a bitter snort. “It doesn’t take that much courage. Just the loss of the one thing you’d be willing to die to keep around.” He realized exactly what he’d said and his eyes tightened, knowing what Darcy would ask.

 

“You sound like you’re talking from personal experience.”

 

“Never mind, forget I said anything.”

 

“Steve.” He winced.

 

“You sound like my ma,” he mumbled.

 

“Good. Now tell me what you meant by that.”

 

He sighed heavily. “When- when I put the plane down, I don’t think I really meant it like that in my head, but maybe subconsciously… I was doing it because Bucky was gone. He was the one I’d put down my life for, my… what do you call it, my ‘brother from another mother?’”

 

Darcy let out a small laugh. “Look at you, using modern colloquialisms and everything. I’m so proud.” She sobered quickly, though. “I really am, though. It takes a lot of self reflection and awareness to recognize your own subconscious motives and it’s a huge step towards accepting Bucky being gone-” Steve swallowed hard, but she plowed on. “-and I understand where you’re coming from, I do. Because I’ve been there.”

 

***

 

“What?” Steve was shocked. Not because he thought that no one could ever experience a tragedy like his. He knew that they were all too common. But Darcy? Darcy with her bright colors and happy jokes and sunny personality?

 

“I know, hard to believe. It’s been a while. It was my freshman year of high school and a bunch of us thought it would be fun to play Truth or Dare after we’d had a few drinks. There was this pond nearby and an old water tower that sat next to it and someone dared my best friend, Heather, to jump off the tower into the water. It was deep enough and people did it all the time, but we made it a dare because she was afraid of heights. Anyway, she gets up there and she starts yelling that she can’t do it, she can’t, but we were all yelling back to just go, so she just went.

 

“She clipped a railing mid-jump and missed the pond completely.” He could see tears welling in her eyes. “We called 911, but they told us she was probably dead on impact. It wasn’t a short drop.” Steve wrapped an arm around her shoulders, letting her cry into his shirt. Finally, she drew back, turning to stare back at the old building. He knew it was easier than looking at him, so he let her.

 

“I didn’t even realize I was going to do it until I was holding a handful of Vicodin and staring at myself in the bathroom mirror, wondering if there was a big light and pearly gates. It was a picture I’d stuck in the corner of the mirror that saved me, one of me and Heather smiling on the first day of school, arms wrapped around each other. She was smiling and looking right at me and I _knew_ , I _knew_ that she’d kick my ass if she knew what I was doing. So I flushed the pills and told my parents, got myself put into therapy.”

 

***

 

Darcy wiped at her eyes angrily, so he pulled out his hankie, handing it to her. She took it with a nod of thanks. “So I guess what I’m saying is… It gets easier to carry. It’s never completely gone, because gone means forgetting them, but you can remember the good stuff and the falling doesn’t seem like such a big part of their life anymore.”

 

“The grieving’s over. It’s time for the celebration,” he murmured quietly. She smiled at him, handing back the slightly damp hankie.

 

“Exactly, glad to see you were paying attention. The grieving will come back every once in a while. It’ll come back when you least expect it and you’ll need to take a day, if you can, to just be sad about it, allow yourself to remember what is was like when he was here. But then you’ll remember that he’d probably punch you in the face for sitting in your room when you could be talking to pretty dames for him-” Steve chuckled. He hadn’t realized he’d told Darcy so many stories about Bucky’s personality, “-and you’ll get off your ass and return to the world a little bit lighter.”

 

Suddenly, unexpected by both of them, he hugged her. He felt her tense, then relax. “Thank you,” he told her sincerely. “As much as I wish you didn’t understand, it’s kind of nice that someone else knows.”

 

He felt her nod into his chest. “Ditto, Spangles. So, whattaya say we leave the inspiring but depressing war monument and go find a bar?”

 

Chuckling, Steve shook his head. “Or we could find a grocery store and a pint of ice cream and head back to the motel to watch movies.”

 

“Captain,” Darcy said with the most genuine smile he’d seen in half an hour, “I like the way you think.”

 

~*~

 

“Why are you so comfortable with me touching you?” Darcy asked later as she was snuggled into his side, the empty carton of mint chocolate chip resting next to her thigh. The black and white figures on the screen moved around erratically as she stared, her eyes glazed over in a way that meant she wasn’t really seeing them.

 

Steve shrugged, keeping his eyes on the screen as well. “Part of it is just you, I think,” he told her. “You don’t really take no for an answer and you do it with everyone. I’ve even seen you and Nat pretty close on the couch in the media room and she hardly lets anyone near her when it’s not part of a mission. Even Bruce lets you hug him and you know how he is about close contact. Another part of it is…” He trailed off and felt her twist to look up at him as he gathered his thoughts. “I was in the cold for so long,” he said finally. “It’s just kind of nice to have another person here with me. You kinda ground me, remind me that I’m not alone and it’s not cold anymore.”

 

Darcy nodded her understanding. “I can see that. It’s a lot harder to be disoriented with an anchor. Good thing I’m warm and squishy though.” She grinned up at him. “Nothing like ice.”

 

He returned her smile. “No, you’re definitely not. You’re probably the warmest person I know. In more ways than one. I mean, who else in the tower would see me having a bad day and resign themselves to spending several days in my company?” he joked, though he knew she’d caught the more serious undertone.

 

Rolling her eyes, Darcy just snuggled deeper into his side. “Yeah, yeah, you’re _such_ a burden Steve. But you’re right, I’m totally the best person in the tower. Feel free to lavish me with praise and gifts of chocolate, as befits a goddess.” She grinned at him ridiculously, crossing her eyes and sticking out her tongue.

 

As intended, Steve laughed. “I’ll be sure to do that. Does Thor know you’re competing for godly status?”

 

“Steve, honey,” Darcy said with a pitying smile. “There’s no competition.”

 

Steve surprised himself later by later remembering her words and her face as she said them and thinking that she was absolutely right.

 

There really wasn’t any competition.

 

~*~

 

They bummed around San Antonio the next day, getting a guided tour of the Alamo by daylight, when “all the ghosts of the past were asleep,” as Darcy had told him, and stocking up on new clothes. Darcy bought a long sleeved, short skirted dress and paired it with leggings, boots, and a knit hat, despite the summer heat. Steve shook his head, bemused, as he donned the Hawkeye t-shirt Darcy had bought him.

 

“Are you going to get me one of every Avenger?” he asked her ruefully. She merely shot him a grin that was slightly terrifying in its glee. He took that as a yes and hoped she at least got him Black Widow next time. Nat would get a kick out of it.

 

When Steve went to put on his boots, he found a sleeker, newer looking pair than what he’d taken off last night. He merely shot Darcy a look.

 

“What?” she asked innocently. “Can’t be stylish _and_ functional? You’ll be fine, Captain 40’s.” He rolled his eyes and put them on. They were surprisingly comfortable and seemed like he’d be able to move in them, unlike what Natasha kept trying to get him to wear.

 

The hot wind whipped past their faces, getting drier as they moved farther west and north. Darcy wouldn’t tell him where they were going and got a strange look on her face every time he asked, so he let it go. They stopped briefly in Roswell to laugh at the alien attractions, so strange when they had their own real live alien sharing the tower at home.

 

Eventually, Darcy directed him of the highway and it was barely out of sight before a town emerged on the horizon.

 

“What town is that?” Steve asked, after Darcy directed him towards it. There was a seconds hesitation and then…

 

“Puente Antiguo,” she answered softly. “Where it all began for me.” She laughed softly. “A bit of a selfish detour, but I couldn’t resist since we were so close.”

 

“Of course. It’s completely ok.” They rode the rest of the way in silence, until she directed him to park behind an abandoned car dealership at the other end of the town.

 

“This used to be Jane’s lab,” she explained, fishing a key out of one of her pockets, grinning sheepishly. “I never actually gave up my key. I’ve just always kind of loved this place, you know?” He just nodded, since she didn’t really seem to expect a response.

 

Moving quietly, with a sort of reverence, Darcy unlocked the door and looked around. “Jeez, it’s so empty. I mean, I knew it would be, since we took all of our stuff with us to London and then to the tower, but still. Wow.”

 

“It’s different than you remember it being,” Steve said softly, definitely understanding that feeling.

 

“Yeah,” she responded quietly. After a moment, she shook herself and started walking. “Come on, we’re going up to the roof.”

 

Steve followed without question, accepting the blankets she snagged from a closet, but when she opened the door at the top of the steps, his breath caught.

 

The view was spectacular.

 

The sun hung low over the desert, nearly touching the horizon and painting everything with a red-gold light. Though the whole town was spread out in behind them, they couldn’t have been farther removed from it. The beauty of the nature in front of them completely erased the thought of humanity behind them, pitifully tiny against the vastness of the New Mexico desert.

 

Steve followed Darcy to the edge of the roof, groping with his hands as he sat down, unwilling to take his eyes off the sight for even a moment. Darcy huffed a quiet laugh.

 

“Amazing, isn’t it? I think this is what I missed most in New York. Everything there is a concrete jungle, and don’t get me wrong, it’s beautiful in its own way. But it’s not this.”

 

Steve laughed quietly. “No, it most certainly is not. I feel so…” He trailed off, unable to put his feeling into words as the sun sank lower.

 

“Small?” Darcy filled in for him. “It’s dwarfing, but not in a way that makes you feel insignificant. It’s just, like, a reminder. A reminder that no matter what stupid shit humans do, there will always be beauty like this, wild and untameable and un-erasable.” She gestured to the colors in the sky that made Steve’s fingers itch for a palette of paint, though he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to capture them. “This? This is always going to happen somewhere, even if humanity manages to wipe itself out with its own idiocy. It’s happened for millions of years and it will happen for millions more. And I don’t know, but I guess that makes me feel a little bit better when I fuck stuff up, like no matter what I did, the sun will still rise and set and it will still be beautiful.” She shrugged, sliding her glasses up her nose. “So, I guess that’s what I feel when I look at this.”

 

Steve smiled. “It’s what I’m feeling too, except I didn’t know it until you described it to me. How are you so good with words? Every time I try to say something like that, it comes out as unintelligible mush.”

 

Her smile was wicked. “Especially around pretty dames?” she asked.

 

He blushed. “I was hoping you wouldn’t remember that conversation,” he admitted. She snickered.

 

“Not remember a conversation where Captain America admitted to checking me out? Puh-leeze. But seriously, I can speak because I took Public Speaking in college. It’s part of Poli-Sci, or at least the track I was taking. I need to be able to interact with people on a daily and often very public basis. It helps to know how not to screw that up. You get used to it.” She shrugged. “Plus, I help Pepper with Avengers PR sometimes. Plus plus, I hang out with Thor, and, despite his berserker warrior status, that dude can wax serious poetic over a cup of coffee or Jane’s hair or stuff like that. It rubbed off on me.”

 

Steve smiled at her, a bit shocked. “Darcy, did you know that you’re incredible?” He blushed as soon as he realized what he said, but forged on. “I mean, you’re strong and independent and smart and beautiful and you interact with some of the most messed up people on the planet on a daily basis and you haven’t thrown hot coffee all over Tony yet or anything and I just think it’s kind of amazing that you manage to do all that all the time without giving up in disgust.” He stopped for breath, glancing away from her at the almost gone sunset with a flaming face.

 

“Breathe, soldier,” she told him, and even without looking, he could hear the laughter in her voice. When he glanced back, though, Darcy’s smile was soft and her eyes lit up with an emotion he couldn’t name. “Thanks, Steve. It means a lot that you think that.” Her own cheeks pinked. “I guess I’m not used to people really seeing me, you know? I’ve got a persona and they see that first and the real me later. Sometimes never. So just… thanks.” She leaned up and planted a soft kiss on his cheek, then abruptly lay down, fanning her hair out above her. “Stars are coming out,” she announced.

 

Steve sensed that the subject of Darcy was closed, so he lay down beside her, looking up. “Yeah, they are. You can see more of them out here, can’t you?”

 

“Millions more,” she informed him. “If I see an anomaly, I’ll have to text Jane,” she said, with a small smirk on her lips. “Especially if it contains an Asgardian.”

 

“Isn’t Thor at the Tower?”

 

She shrugged. “Never know what might happen. Besides, Sif was pretty awesome, from that one time I met her slash saw her fight a battle against Decepticon, Fire Breathing Edition. Patent pending. It would be cool to see her again.”

 

Steve didn’t really know what else to say, so he left it there, watching the stars come out. It was amazing, how many more he could see. Not that New York in the 40’s was the glowing hub it was today, but it was nothing like the darkness of the desert, even with Albuquerque nearby. And there hadn’t been much time for stargazing on his Howling Commando missions, not to mention the trees that were in the way. He couldn’t even pick out the constellations he knew from the multitude of stars.

 

When he glanced over at Darcy to share his awe, he found her asleep. Smiling, Steve picked up one of the thick wool blankets she’d handed him and draped it over her, taking off his jacket and folding it up for a pillow for her. His shirt became his own pillow and he hurried to pull the other blanket over him in the rapidly cooling air.

 

Looking up once more at the endless blanket of stars, Steve smiled. He didn’t feel the need to keep watch; it seemed like nature had that covered for him. But he couldn’t help but stay awake for a few more hours, staring into the universe.

 

~*~

 

The next morning found Steve in the town’s only diner, laughing as Darcy recounted the story of Thor breaking the mug. He himself politely requested more coffee from the waitress who shot Darcy a look and said, “At least this time you found one with manners,” before sashaying away while Darcy blushed.

 

Steve raised an eyebrow. “Something of a celebrity here?” he asked.

 

She shrugged. “When you’re the only one of three people who even sort of knows why a giant robot with anger issues levelled half the town, people kind of make a point to know who you are. I got free beers out of that story. At least, what I could tell of it. Because of the whole ‘keep quiet, or we’ll _keep_ you quiet’ SHIELD thing I had to sign.”

 

“Mmhm. And how many people did you tell the wrong story just because you thought it was funny to make something up?”

 

Darcy let a slow smirk unfold on her face. “Why Captain, I do believe you’re getting to know me quite well.” She sighed happily. “My personal favorite was that Tony Stark built a destructo robot while he was drunk one time and then it got away from him and wandered aimlessly, looking for human compassion, but receiving none until finally, its hold on its human-like compassion slipped and it went bat shit crazy on poor old Puente Antiguo. Could have made a blockbuster off of that one, except then I think I’d have to pay Tony rights for using him as a character and I am not about to make Stark even filthy richer.”

 

Steve chuckled. “You could always change the name and story very, very slightly and use it. I’m mostly just trying to figure out if he’d be mad at you or flattered.”

 

Darcy sighed dramatically. “Flattered, probably. I’m not feeding his ego either.”

 

“Shame.” Steve stole one of her pieces of bacon. “Sounded like a top-notch film.”

 

“Of course it was,” Darcy told him, stealing her bacon back. “I thought of it.”

 

They travelled miles and miles of desert, reaching the Grand Canyon mid afternoon and spending the rest of the time sitting near the edge. Darcy wanted to rest and appreciate the view and Steve wanted to draw it… and her. She actually blushed when he asked if he could, but sat appropriately still as she gazed off into the distance. Steve wasn’t quite sure he managed to capture her look of wonder just right, but when he showed it to her, she squealed and launched herself at him in a hug. Even he could tell that it meant she liked it.

 

As the sun began to set, taking his breath away for the second time in two days, Steve groaned and stood up. “We have to find somewhere to sleep for the night, or buy a tent and sleep out here.”

 

“Gotcha covered, Cap,” Darcy replied, holding out a hand so Steve could help her up. “There’s a general store a few miles that-a-way-” she gestured to their left. “-on Havasupai land. It sells camping gear, for all the tourists who just have to stay a little longer and try to sleep in the Great Outdoors. I dragged Jane here once and we ended up buying from there because while we had gizmos and dinglehoppers aplenty, Miss Astrophysicist forgot to order a tent like I’d asked her to, so we had to make do. They’ve got a campground too.”

 

“Alright, hop on then.” Steve swung his leg over the bike in a move that had become daily routine over the past week. Feeling Darcy settle in behind him was becoming familiar too, and he knew it would be strange to go back to riding alone when this was over.

 

They bought their supplies with no trouble, even though the Havasupai boy behind the counter smiled jokingly at Darcy and asked her ‘what happened to last year’s tent?’ to which she replied that she just missed him so much that she had to come see him, reaching over the counter to pinch his cheek.

 

“Family friend,” she explained. “My parents brought us here every year during the summer and we got to know a few of the people. I used to play with Austin when we were younger and he’d look out for me, make sure I wasn’t getting myself into _too_ much trouble.”

 

Steve grinned. “I take it that was a full time job?”

 

“Every minute of every day, and he still managed to live.”

 

“I don’t know how he did it.” Steve laughed and ducked Darcy’s indignant swipe at his head.

 

“Careful, mister, or I’ll kick you out of the tent to sleep alone on the cold ground.”

 

“Yes, ma’am,” he told her, firing off a salute, but softening it with a grin.

 

“Speaking of the tent, let’s get that set up,” Darcy said, looking at the sky already filling with stars. “We’ve got a long haul tomorrow. And no,” she cut him him off with a smile, “I’m not telling you where we’re going. Get used to it.”

  
Steve sighed, but did as he was told with a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Travel and place details: 
> 
> Ok, so Puente Antiguo does not actually exist, which gave me a bit of trouble since I’m using Google Maps to estimate all the travel times. Instead, I used the address of the Cerro Pelon Ranch, where the set of the town was built for the movie. You know, for those of you playing along at home. 5527 New Mexico 41, Lamy, NM 87540
> 
> The Havasupai are a real tribe and they do have a town called Supai, which includes a campground and a general store (although I’m not sure what the store actually sells). I tried to do as much research as I could on the Havasupai, but if I offended anyone, please tell me of my mistake and I’ll fix it.


End file.
